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The Cold, Cold Ground

Adrian McKinty was born in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. He studied politics and philosophy at Oxford before moving to America in the early 1990s. Living first in Harlem, he found employment as a construction worker, barman, and bookstore clerk. In 2000 he moved to Denver to become a high school English teacher and it was there that he began writing fiction.

Dead I Well May Be

Young Michael, an illegal immigrant escaping the troubles in Northern Ireland is strong and fearless and clever, just the fellow to be tapped by Darkey, a crime boss, to join a gang of Irish thugs struggling against the rising Dominican powers in Harlem and the Bronx. The time is pre-Giuliani New York, when crack rules the city, squatters live furtively in ruined buildings, and hundreds are murdered each month.

The Ghosts of Belfast

Fegan has been a "hard man" - an IRA killer in Northern Ireland. Now that peace has come, he is being haunted day and night by 12 ghosts: a mother and infant, a schoolboy, a butcher, an RUC constable, and seven other of his innocent victims. In order to appease them, he's going to have to kill the men who gave him orders. As he's working his way down the list, he encounters a woman who may offer him redemption; she has borne a child to an RUC officer and is an outsider too.

Hidden River

Alexander Lawson is a former detective for Northern Ireland's police force. After a disastrous six-month stint in the drug squad, he became addicted to heroin and resigned in disgrace. Now 24, sickly, and on the dole, Alex learns that his high-school love, Victoria Patawasti, has been murdered in America. Victoria's wealthy family sends Alex to Colorado to investigate the case, and he seizes the opportunity for a chance at redemption.

Luck and Judgement: A DC Smith Investigation Series, Book 3

When a worker goes missing from a North Sea gas platform, there seem to be just two possible explanations - it was a tragic accident or a suicide. It does not take Smith and his detectives long, however, to discover that James Bell led a double life back onshore in Kings Lake, a life complicated enough to make him at least one dangerous enemy. Before the case can be unraveled, Smith must get a new team working together.

The Girl from Venice

Venice, 1944. The war may be waning, but the city is still occupied and people all over Europe fear the power of the Third Reich. One night, under a sky of brilliant stars, a poor fisherman named Cenzo comes across a girl's body floating in the lagoon. He carries her into his boat and soon discovers that she is very much alive and very much in trouble: Born to a wealthy Jewish family who has been captured and deported by the Nazis, Guilia is on the run after she was found hiding in a local hospital.

Music Lover says:"tedious and trite"

Publisher's Summary

Dublin. Joshua Boyce watches a jewellers as he plans a job; Dixie Payton desperate for cash attempts a mugging; DI Synott calls on a rape suspect, convinced of his guilt; gangland boss Lar MacKendrick is getting back into shape after brothers Jo-Jo's murder. Criminals and police each have their own code, with both sides resorting to desperate measures as a means to an end.

What the Critics Say

"This is the type of book you pass on to someone you like, and say 'Read this.'." (The Post) "He has something of James Joyce's ability in conjuring up a vivid Dublin: but this modern city is very different from the one Leopald Bloom wandered through." (The Independent)

The Midnight Choir is a big novel. I don't mean in terms of length but in terms of its subject. Rather than focusing on a particular incident, investigator or criminal this book depicts a myriad of crimes perpetrated by an assortment of criminals and paints a giant canvas showing how and why crime happens. There are crimes carried out due to desperation, corruption, greed and a fervent belief it is the right thing to do and they interconnect at the most unexpected points.

In Galway a man is prevented from jumping to his death by a young Garda who must then try to find out how the man came to be covered in blood that isn't his own. Meanwhile in Dublin a young mother tries to mug an American tourist at a cash machine while a seasoned criminal plans a jewellery robbery, hard man Lar MacKendrick gets back into the swing of killing people after the death of his brother and a young woman reports a date rape to Police.

At the centre of all of this is Detective Inspector Harry Synott who proceeds through these investigations as well as experiencing a series of flashbacks of incidents in his career which help explain why he's not everyone's favourite copper. Harry is a brilliantly complex character, struggling continuously with the question of whether justice can be served by the law. But if Harry's story isn't enough to keep you glued there are several other equally compelling personal stories that will, if you're at all like me, have you shifting from anger to sadness and back again at a rapid pace.

The story dealt with some uniquely Irish themes as well as the broader issues that are shared in big cities the world over so having the book narrated in John Cormack's gentle Irish accent was a definite treat as it helped me get absorbed in the world that Kerrigan had created even more completely.